Re: A lot of them, and yes you *can* contract herpes that way...

When you are touching someone's body all over,you do not know where they have been. A female wearing underwear could be loaded with sores under it, and you may not know because you can't see it. However, if she or her underwear touched a sore and then touched her body somewhere else, that spot harbors the illness. This is the way of Herpes, Chancroid, Gonorrhea and others. She may have sores inside herself, and she may not even know it. There may be the tingling beginning of an outbreak around the lips, with no outward sign yet, nevertheless it is there, and it is transmissible.

Also, anything which is carried by the body's moisture will likely be present in the breath and/or saliva.

If there was no sexual contact you may be less likely to have a problem, but as in the paragraphs above, that is not a guarantee.

Venereal disease is not rare.

If you feel that you have been placed at risk, the thing to do is go to your local Health Department and ask them to test you for STDs, including HIV (Get the blood test, not the saliva swab), or if you have a physician you feel comfortable with, and you have the resources to do so, go to him/her for it. If you do go to your own physician and s/he tells you that, based upon your account of the ocurrence, there is no cause for concern, then forget they exist and go straight to the Health Dept. It will cost you less there, anyway.

It is just common sense to err on the side of caution. It would be risky, for instance, for a woman to engage in this type of behavior with a man who spent all day pulling toilets out of tenements. There is no way on earth his hands and fingernails could be clean.

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I am curious as to how masseuses protect themselves when giving lots of people massages. Do you know anything about this?
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Yes I do. It's very hard to protect oneself in that situation. I am the only long-practicing Masseuse (15-20 years) I know who hasn't caught something off a client, and that is because I quit working with strangers when a woman on my table (Between coughs) told me that she just hadn't thought it necessary to tell me the doctors told her she had Epstein-Barre, because she didn't believe them.

Then there was the man who had been blood-tested positive for a contagious venereal disease, but had "asked his body" about it, "Got a no", whatever the h_ll that means, and so decided he no longer had it and therefore didn't need to take the medication.

There are many other such stories which I have encountered, but I won't bore you with them.

Any clients I work with now are carefully screened, then referred by folks who care about me, before I ever see them.

Please be careful.

All you need to ask yourself is- what will you do/feel once the doc walks in and tells you "Well, you've got a problem". Ask yourself what kind of woman do you want to spend the rest of your life with, and ask yourself if that kind of woman would want anything to do with someone who has a diagnosis to deal with. Then make your choice about your own behaviors.

That's all I can say.

Stay safe. Your children will thank you. This is not a game anymore.

Good Luck.